Eastern European girls outperform male counterparts

THE Leaving Certificate performance of girls from eastern European countries in their home languages far outweigh those of their male counterparts.

As the familiar trend of higher proportions of As and honours grades (A, B or C) scored by female students in the vast majority of subjects is repeated again this year, analysis of the smaller numbers taking non-curricular EU languages show there is little difference among those who may have come to the country in recent years.

The non-traditional language with the highest number of candidates for Leaving Certificate this year was Polish, for which 286 female and 288 students got results on Wednesday. But while 22% of females got an A and 92% got an honours grade, the equivalent figures among male students were 8.7% and 85.1%.

More than 15% of the 151 girls who sat the Lithuanian exam in June got an A, almost four times the proportion of the 103 boys that took it. Honours grades were scored by all but 3% of female candidates for Romanian, 10% more than the proportion of boys.

There were slightly fewer takers for Latvian, but again, there were gaps of more than 10% between the proportion of girls and boys with As or honours grades among the 111 candidates.

Similar gaps were evident in the marks for most other non-curricular EU languages, such as Slovakian (37 students), Dutch (29 candidates) and Bulgarian (14 students), but the 25 Hungarian exam results show a rare exception as boys outperformed girls.

The majority of mainstream subjects at higher level show more honours grades for girls, according to the gender breakdown by the State Examinations Commission (SEC).

There were exceptions in maths, Spanish, applied maths and physics, which saw boys outperform girls.

Meanwhile, the assessment of Leaving Certificate results by college admissions officers is continuing, as they work with the Central Applications Office (CAO) to prepare to make offers to almost 50,000 people.

Although the number of places and grades of all applicants to each individual study programme will determine whether the CAO points needed will be higher or lower than last year, figures showing record numbers of school leavers with over 450 points indicate that requirements could be tougher for many degree courses.

Students considering an appeal of one of their Leaving Certificate grades must notify the SEC through their schools next Tuesday, if they want to view the script for the relevant subject on the first weekend in September.

The National Parents Council Post-Primary Leaving Certificate helpline (1800 265 165) is open from 10am to 3pm again today and will also operate on Monday and Tuesday to coincide with the CAO Round 1 offers, which go online at 6am on Monday.